Free Spirit Experience Gap Year in Israel and Italy

Our daughter participated in the Free Spirit program in the fall of 2017. After months of researching for a program that would be a good fit for our daughter, we found Free Spirit. At that time, she had lost confidence in herself, she was making unhealthy choices and she was just not the person she was meant to be. It started out a bit challenging for her
but by the end things fell into place and she had a difficult time leaving. FS gave back her confidence, to believe in herself again , to want more out of life and to love herself.
She came back with skills and tools to help her when she gets into situations that she is not comfortable in.
She made strong bonds with all the staff and even brought home one of the kibbutz cats whom we love dearly and is a great support for her. Today she is a hard working individual wanting more in life, travels the world and is the person we always knew she meant to be. We are forever thankful to Free Spirit helping us get our daughter back.

Our son attended Free Spirit as middle/high schooler when he struggled with a school and home life in the wake of Covid shutdowns and online schooling. He spent nearly six months at Free Spirit and it was truly transformative. We credit FSE with helping to change his trajectory from likely high-school dropout to on-track for graduating and planning on college.

We are confident he would not have participated in programs other than FSE. The staff and integrated curriculum were a perfect match for a kid not eager to engage with traditional therapy. He plans to attend FSE again after graduation.

Both of my daughters attended Free Spirit. It was a life-changing experience that has made them stronger, more resilient, and more appreciative of their own strengths and values. My older daughter attended in 2019; she was drawn to the caring staff, 24/7 support, and the chance to really discover who she was and what she wanted to do with her life. She is now in law school pursuing a public interest career focused on mental health and disability. My younger daughter just needed an extra year before college. She attended in 2021-2022 and thrived at Free Spirit, making lifelong friends with the other students as well as the unbelievable staff. While she was there, she was able to explore new passions, including learning to blacksmith and getting a skipper's license. By the end of the program, she was living on her own in Haifa, traveling around Israel, and displaying a new self-confidence that has helped carry her through college. I would send both daughters back in a heartbeat and highly recommend this program - it was transformational for my daughters and for our family.

We consider it a privilege to share our successful experience with "Free Spirit”.

We first came to know the program and its team nearly 10 years ago, following a crisis that one of our children experienced.

To our great satisfaction, the program proved to be even more successful than we had anticipated, contributing significantly to the improvement in our son’s condition.

We deeply appreciate the
program and are immensely grateful to its directors and counselors for the significant progress achieved as a result of our son’s participation.

Even after completing the program, our son has stayed in touch with its professional, warm, and supportive staff. He occasionally visits the kibbutz where it operates and feels very much "at home" whenever he goes there.

As his parents, we have received full cooperation from the program's directors whenever we felt the need to consult with them, and they have provided their support on numerous occasions.

We highly recommend this program, which is truly unlike anything else and has opened up new horizons for our son.

Coming to Free Spirit in the beginning of 2019 was the start of a process which helped me set foot in life again. It was the beginning of something special, spanning from expanding my comfort zone, to learning how to take responsibility.
I was directly confronted with the reality of life again, which I was shielding myself from the last few years. The diversity of projects and activities was brilliant, from working on the Fishfarm on the kibbutz, to meeting young Israelis who themselves, struggled to get a grip back on life. The process that I underwent was tough but it payed off every day, simultaneously creating a sense of self confidence. I wasn't sure what I should expect from living on a kibbutz, but I couldn't have wanted anything else, the communal living was a wonderful setting to get a fresh taste on life again.

Coming to Free Spirit in the beginning of 2019 was the start of a process which helped me set foot in life again. It was the beginning of something special, spanning from expanding my comfort zone, to learning how to take responsibility.
I was directly confronted with the reality of life again, which I was shielding myself from the last few years. The diversity of projects and activities was brilliant, from working on the Fishfarm on the kibbutz, to meeting young Israelis who themselves, struggled to get a grip back on life. The process that I underwent was tough but it payed off every day, simultaneously creating a sense of self confidence. I wasn't sure what I should expect from living on a kibbutz, but I couldn't have wanted anything else, the communal living was a wonderful setting to get a fresh taste on life again

My child spent 3 months with Free Spirit from November 2018-February 2019 and it was an incredible experience. They managed to individualize the program to fit her needs for personal growth. The therapists are top notch, kind and supportive but firm and my daughter was unable to manipulate them.. She grew to respect them all - which was not always the case back home in Washington DC. The therapists and counselors encouraged her to address her challenges and anxieties head on and because it was 24/7 she worked through challenges in real time.

She traveled to Germany, worked on the Kibbutz, performed in the Kibbutz's Aretha Franklin tribute, traveled around Israel and most important discovered a host of reasons to truly like herself. In addition, the confidence she developed living abroad was life changing. After Israel she felt secure enough to travel to Indonesia to volunteer in a non-therapeutic program.

She is now thriving in college and credits her Free Spirit Experience with giving her many of the skills to survive all the changes that first semester of college can bring.

As a parent I loved the team at Free Spirit. They were responsive and thoughtful. I had the chance to spend time with them in Israel and was touched by how well they knew my child and all her strengths - as well as her challenges.

The program itself was super fun, I learned how to weld, hiked the Eilat mountains, sorted goldfish (which makes for an excellent conversation starter), and got to sing in a showcase for the entire kibbutz!! There are also weekends off where you get to live with a host family and they take care to pair you with a good match. My host family was absolutely lovely and we had a blast playing board games together, attending birthday parties, and exploring Tel Aviv.
Of course, the real highlights of the free spirit experience come from the personal growth and community you can achieve there. Free spirit helped me find who I wanted to live as and grow into my own skin more comfortably. It was at free spirit that I really felt like I started to develop a sense of who I am and stability in that. One of my good friends in the program said that I seem like someone who spent a lot of time trying to find the right box to fit into before realizing that I couldn’t fit into any and therefore just had to be me. I think that sense of self he was referring to was one of the greatest things free spirit gave me. While free spirit was a program, it felt more like a family and a community in many ways. Having been in several different programs, I know that that is special. There’s a personal element in that the counselors and the participants are friends and there to help each other as opposed to all on their own individual regimen that counselors are there to enforce. We work together and we also enjoy each other’s company and do fun things with each other. That said, it wasn’t all perfect and easygoing. I often butted heads with people in the program but the staff handled these conflicts with such diligence and compassion that I am grateful for the conflicts and the ways I was able to grow from them. The person who was the hardest for me to get along with is now one of my best friends in the whole world and has taught me to show compassion before judgement
I will forever be grateful to free spirit and everything I got from this program and the incredible people there.